Success Secrets

No Way But Up

Battleship and John Carter star Taylor Kitsch hangs tough in the ring and on the screen

Ari Karpel

ON THE NONDESCRIPT west side of Los Angeles, behind a door with no sign, Taylor Kitsch is wrapping his hands. He is hidden away in a private boxing gym called TSB-44, where he works out whenever he's in town.

"This'll keep you honest," he says. Boxing, he means. A celebrity like Kitsch may be able to slip away for a discreet workout, but in the ring there's nowhere to hide.

"It's about pushing yourself and attempting to exceed those limits, and pushing the guy beside you," he says as he clambers under the ropes into the ring. He jumps up and down as his assistant, Trey, hooks up an iPod to blast a hip-hop mix.

"See that?" Kitsch asks me, pointing to a silhouette of a battleship along one wall. "Pete's got lots of stuff up here," he says, nodding toward Navy SEAL logos. "Pete" is Peter Berg, one of the partners behind TSB-44. (The letters stand for Tough Strong Bold.) As creator of the TV series Friday Night Lights, he brought us Kitsch in his breakout role as bad-boy running back Tim Riggins. And Berg just directed the actor in Battleship, the naval action flick out next month. (Yep, that Battleship, as in "You sunk my..." from the game.)

Kitsch doesn't come to this spot just to avoid paparazzi. It's an ideal training ground, with an enclosed outdoor yard for fresh-air sprints-plus that secluded location down a dead-end street. "No bullshit," Kitsch tells me. "You're here to really work hard."

And we do, though not as hard as Kitsch does with someone who can spar at his level. "Trey's getting good, but he can't spar with me yet."

David Paul, who runs the gym, puts us through a grueling warmup. "Feet to the fire!" he shouts, and the three of us sit in a circle in the ring, feet straight out in front of us, as if we're warming them by a campfire. We grunt and strain through a series of abdominal sets with punches and stretches, or "abbies," as Paul calls them. Then we do bag drills, followed by 27 rounds of "run and shoots"—a fancy name for sprints alternating with jabs and uppercuts—and ring work.

Paul, who trained Christian Bale for The Fighter, keeps things lighthearted. When we're back in the ring for 3 minutes of sitting with our backs and legs off the floor—a twist on a SEAL drill—he has us tell stories to distract one another from the escalating pain.

Kitsch has simple reasons for loving the sweet science. "You knock out both cardio and weights, really, in an hour and a half," he says. "But you're drenched 99 percent of the time. And you're with someone." He nods to Trey. "You got your tunes." He nods to the speakers blaring Travis Barker's "Beat Goes On." "It's no bullshit," he says again. There's no calling his agent, his manager, or his publicist. It's just him and some guy who's trying to punch him in the face.

Berg introduced Kitsch to boxing in 2006 while they were filming the first episode of Friday Night Lights in Austin, Texas. Berg had invited the young cast members to join him at a local boxing gym. "All the actors said they wanted to go," he recalls, "and Kitsch was the only one who had the balls to show up." Berg wasn't sure at first if Kitsch could cut it; but, he says, "Taylor's a legitimate athlete." They've been trading punches ever since.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS TURNED OUT TO BE THE PERFECT MATCH OF actor and show. By avoiding pat resolutions and black-and-white characters, FNL helped elevate the television medium. "That's the beauty of FNL," Kitsch says. "It's legit. It's real. People have problems."

It also succeeded in transforming Kitsch from a model into a bona fide actor. Now he's taking the next step—toward movie stardom.

"I'm an all-or-nothing person," says Kitsch, 31, whose year began with the megabudget action flick John Carter. (He played the title character, a Civil War soldier who is transported to Mars and battles aliens for the red planet's survival.) Next month he fights aliens again in Battleship, which was filmed off the Hawaiian coast. In July comes Savages, an Oliver Stone thriller in which Kitsch plays, yes, a former Navy SEAL.

Kitsch has built his career while living almost 1,400 miles away from Hollywood. The British Columbia native settled in Austin while filming FNL, and he likes the place so much he's building a house there.

"I love to stay out of it," he says. "I don't do the L.A. scene. I stay focused and very myopic. I don't feel I need to prove myself or be in people's faces, especially in this town."

Though it may seem as if the way to get ahead is to know what you want and ask for it, sometimes a lower-key approach works even better. Sometimes there's power in not asking—in just being yourself, playing the long game, and letting your hard work speak for you. Kitsch knows that power. "I'm not the guy who's, like, 'Hey, can you put me in your movie?'"

"He didn't call me," Berg says. And indeed, Berg first told Kitsch about Battleship several years ago, when they were on Kitsch's boat together down on Lake Austin. At the time they were dragging Berg's son in an inner tube and shooting the breeze. "I was just curious what he was doing," Kitsch says. If Berg wanted Kitsch for the movie, he knew where to find him. And he did find him. "I had to fly to London [where Kitsch was shooting John Carter] and drag his ass to Hawaii," Berg says.

Kitsch has plenty of experience with unexpected opportunities. In Texas, football is life. In Western Canada, where Kitsch grew up—4 hours outside Vancouver—it's all about hockey. He was so good on the ice that he was preparing to play pro... and then he blew out his knee. "It was fucking devastating." But he had done some modeling. And because the industry is so small, and handsome young men from the hinterlands are such precious commodities, a big New York agency soon came calling.

A single Abercrombie & Fitch gig opened doors for acting auditions. Lo and behold, the kid started snagging roles: He was in Snakes on a Plane, The Covenant (a thriller that he wouldn't be disappointed if you haven't seen), John Tucker Must Die, and soon Friday Night Lights.

Today, when the pressure is on to become a movie star, Kitsch turns to the one place where he has always sought solace: the gym. Whether you're running, lifting, or boxing, he says, "you never walk out of the gym and say, 'I shouldn't have gone.'" You just do the work, feel good about it for a moment, and then move on to whatever comes next.

Taylor Your Workout

Taylor Kitsch was certified as a nutritionist and trainer before he made it as an actor. Here's his advice for maximizing your own time with a fitness coach.

1. Be clear about how the trainer can help youWant bigger biceps? Or simply gearing up for your first 5-K? Set your goals and communicate them to your trainer. Then when things get tough, he or she can remind you what you're working toward.

2. Take responsibility for your shortcomingsIf you came home at 2 a.m. and ate half a cake, cop to it. Your trainer can work with you by taking that into account and maybe adding cardio that session. "Dude," Kitsch says, "I've been there."

3. Crank up your favorite tunes"People hate cardio," Kitsch says. "I hate cardio. But pick the five top songs that you love. Do your cardio during these songs, and you're done. I'd say 95 percent of the time you don't even know you just did it."

4. Stay in it for the long haulEveryone wants immediate results, Kitsch says. But it takes time for nutrition and exercise to transform a body. Don't become frustrated if you're not jacked overnight. " Patience is huge," Kitsch says. "Huge."

5. Eat right, but don't go crazyBe aware of what you're ingesting, says Kitsch. While you shouldn't deprive yourself of the occasional pizza or beer, the idea is to have protein with every meal and eat complex carbs, especially in the morning.